February 12, 2007 at 15:31Why is Skype reading the BIOS?
The Inquirer website reported that the Skype Internet phone is allegedly secretly reading the BIOS of the user machine and extracting the motherboard number from there. This whole story began back in December, and for about two months now Skype has got at its disposal all new serial motherboards of users.
This information is collected by a program developed by EasyBits Software and used to manage Skype plugins. The functionality offered by EasyBits includes DRM functions that prevent the illegal use and distribution of plugins for Skype. For this reason, Skype 3.0 also checks the BIOS settings on users' computers. Reading the serial number allows EasyBits to quickly identify the computer on which Skype software is installed. However, on Thursday, Skype released a new version of the program - Skype 3.0.0.216, which no longer checks the settings of user machines.
Skype employees themselves believe that there is no crime here, Viruslist.com writes .. “It's quite normal to look at indicators that uniquely identify the platform. There is nothing secret in reading BIOS parameters, ”the company’s official blog says.
This information is collected by a program developed by EasyBits Software and used to manage Skype plugins. The functionality offered by EasyBits includes DRM functions that prevent the illegal use and distribution of plugins for Skype. For this reason, Skype 3.0 also checks the BIOS settings on users' computers. Reading the serial number allows EasyBits to quickly identify the computer on which Skype software is installed. However, on Thursday, Skype released a new version of the program - Skype 3.0.0.216, which no longer checks the settings of user machines.
Skype employees themselves believe that there is no crime here, Viruslist.com writes .. “It's quite normal to look at indicators that uniquely identify the platform. There is nothing secret in reading BIOS parameters, ”the company’s official blog says.